Comparative mythology
Mythology |
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Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics.[1] Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. For example, scholars have used the relationships between different myths to trace the development of religions and cultures, to propose common origins for myths from different cultures, and to support various psychoanalytical theories.
The comparative study of mythologies reveals the trans-national motifs that unify spiritual understanding globally. The significance of this study generates a "broad, sympathetic understanding of these 'stories' in human history".[2] The similarities of myths remind humanity of the universality in the human experience.[2]
Background
Anthropologist C. Scott Littleton defined comparative mythology as "the systematic comparison of myths and mythic themes drawn from a wide variety of cultures".[1] By comparing different cultures' mythologies, scholars try to identify underlying similarities and/or to reconstruct a "protomythology" from which those mythologies developed.[1] To an extent, all theories about mythology follow a comparative approach—as scholar of religion Robert Segal notes, "by definition, all theorists seek similarities among myths".[3] However, scholars of mythology can be roughly divided into particularists, who emphasize the differences between myths, and comparativists, who emphasize the similarities. Particularists tend to "maintain that the similarities deciphered by comparativists are vague and superficial", while comparativists tend to "contend that the differences etched by particularists are trivial and incidental".[4]
Comparative approaches to mythology held great popularity among eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholars. Many of these scholars believed that all myths showed signs of having evolved from a thought which interpreted nearly all myths as poetic descriptions of the sun's behavior. According to this theory, these poetic descriptions had become distorted over time into seemingly diverse stories about gods and heroes.[5] However, modern-day scholars lean more toward particularism, feeling suspicious of broad statements about myths.[6] A recent exception is the historical approach followed in E.J. Michael Witzel's reconstruction of many subsequent layers of older myths.[7][non-primary source needed]
Approaches
Comparative mythologists come from various fields, including
, and they have used a variety of methods to compare myths.Linguistic
Some scholars look at the linguistic relationships between the myths of different cultures. For example, the similarities between the names of gods in different cultures. One particularly successful example of this approach is the study of
This suggests that the Greeks, Romans, and Indians originated from a common ancestral culture, and that the names
Mythological phylogenies also are a potentially powerful way to test hypotheses about cross-cultural relationships among folktales.[9]
Structural
Some scholars look for underlying structures shared by different myths. The folklorist
Psychoanalysis
Some scholars propose that myths from different cultures reveal the same, or similar, psychoanalytic forces at work in those cultures. Some
Motifs
Creation of the earthly realm
A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term myth often refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths. In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths – metaphorically, symbolically, historically, or literally. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state of chaos or amorphousness.
Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in nearly all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals, who often speak and transform easily. They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore ('at that time'). Creation myths address questions deeply meaningful to the society that shares them, revealing their central worldview and the framework for the self-identity of the culture and individual in a universal context.
Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions; found throughout human culture, they are the most common form of myth.
Primordial Chaos
Chaos (Ancient Greek: χάος, romanized: kháos) (aka Primordial Chaos, Primordial Void) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in Greek creation myths. In Christian theology, the same term is used to refer to the gap or the abyss created by the separation of heaven and earth. In Norse mythology, Ginnungagap (old Norse: [ˈɡinːoŋɡɑˌɡɑp]; "gaping abyss", "yawning void") is the primordial void mentioned in the Gylfaginning, the Eddaic text recording Norse cosmogony.
Creation of mankind from clay
The creation of man from clay is a theme that recurs throughout numerous world religions and mythologies.
In the
First Humans
A protoplast, from ancient Greek πρωτόπλαστος (prōtóplastos, "first-formed"), in a religious context initially referred to the first human or, more generally, to the first organized body of progenitors of mankind in a creation myth.
Numerous examples exist throughout history of a human couple being the progenitors of the entire human species. This would include, but not limited to
from Chinese mythos.In Hindu mythology, Manu refers to the archetypal man. In Sanskrit the term for 'human', मानव (IAST: mānava) means 'of Manu' or 'children of Manu'. The Manusmriti is an ancient legal text and constitution among the many Dharmaśāstras of Hinduism and is believed to be a discourse given by Manu.
Acquisition of fire for the benefit of humanity
The theft of fire for the benefit of humanity is a theme that recurs in many world mythologies. A few examples include: in Greek mythology, according to Hesiod, the Titan
who recovered fire which had been hidden from humanity.Flood myth
Cultures around the world tell stories about a great flood.
Dying god
Many myths feature a god who dies and who often returns to life.
Creative sacrifice
Many cultures have stories about divine figures whose death creates an essential part of reality.
Axis mundi
Many mythological beliefs mention a place that sits at the center of the world and acts as a point of contact between different levels of the universe.
Deus otiosus
Many cultures believe in a celestial
Titanomachy
Many cultures have a
Giants
Associated with many mythological hero stories, giants (from Latin and Ancient Greek: gigas, cognate Gaia/Gaea) are beings of human appearance, but of prodigious size and strength common in the mythology and legends of many different cultures. In various Indo-European mythologies, gigantic peoples are featured as primeval creatures associated with chaos and the wild nature, and they are frequently in conflict with the gods, be they Olympian, Celtic, Hindu or Norse. Giants also often play similar roles in the mythologies and folklore of other, non Indo-European peoples, such as in the Nartian traditions, along with the Quinametzin of Aztec mythology.
There are also accounts of giants in the Hebrew Bible. Some of these are called Nephilim, a word often translated as giant although this translation is not universally accepted. They include Og King of Bashan, the Nephilim, the Anakim, and the giants of Egypt mentioned in 1 Chronicles 11:23. The first mention of the Nephilim is found in Genesis 6:4; attributed to them are extraordinary strength and physical proportions.
Dragons and serpents
Usually large to gigantic, serpent-like legendary creatures that appear in the folklore of many cultures around the world. Beliefs about dragons vary drastically by region, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as winged, horned, four-legged, and capable of breathing fire, whereas dragons in eastern cultures are usually depicted as wingless, four-legged, serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence.
Chaoskampf
Part of Chaoskampf or Drachenkampf |
Comparative mythology of sea serpents, dragons and dragonslayers. |
|
One on one epic battles between these beasts are noted throughout many cultures. Typically they consist of a hero or god battling a single to
Ouroboros
Originating in ancient Egyptian iconography, the Ouroboros or uroborus is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. The Ouroboros entered western tradition via Greek magical tradition.
In Norse mythology, the Ouroboros appears as the serpent Jörmungandr, one of the three children of Loki and Angrboda, which grew so large that it could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth.
In the Aitareya Brahmana, a Vedic text of the early 1st millennium BCE, the nature of the Vedic rituals is compared to "a snake biting its own tail."
It is a common belief among indigenous people of the tropical lowlands of South America that waters at the edge of the world-disc are encircled by a snake, often an anaconda, biting its own tail.
Founding myths
Many cultures have myths describing the origin of their customs, rituals, and identity. In fact, ancient and traditional societies have often justified their customs by claiming that their gods or mythical heroes established those customs.[39][40] For example, according to the myths of the Australian Karajarri, the mythical Bagadjimbiri brothers established all of the Karadjeri's customs, including the position in which they stand while urinating.[41] In the Old Testament, the Israelites have a founding myth of their ancestors escaping enslavement from Egypt.
Structure of hero narratives
Human cannibalism
Human cannibalism features in the myths, folklore, and legends of many cultures and is most often attributed to evil characters or as extreme retribution for some wrongdoing. Examples include Lamia of Greek mythology, a woman who became a child-eating monster after her children were destroyed by Hera, upon learning of her husband Zeus' trysts. In Zuni mythology and religion, Átahsaia is a giant cannibalistic demon, feeding on fellow demons and humans alike. He is depicted as having unblinking bulging eyes, long talons, and yellow tusks that protruded past his lips. The myth of Baxbaxwalanuksiwe, in Hamatsa society of the
Astrological traditions, types, and systems
Most human civilizations - India, China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Maya, and Inca, among others - based their culture on complex systems of astrology, which provided a link between the cosmos with the conditions and events on earth. For these, the astrological practice was not mere divination because it also served as the foundation for their spiritual culture and knowledge-systems used for practical purposes such as the calendar (see Mesoamerican calendric shamans) and medicine (e.g. I Ching).
Closely tying in with Astrology, various
Orbis Alius (other earth/world)
The concept of an otherworld in historical Indo-European religion is reconstructed in comparative mythology. Its name is a calque of orbis alius (Latin for "other Earth/world"), a term used by Lucan in his description of the Celtic Otherworld.
Comparable religious, mythological or metaphysical concepts, such as a realm of supernatural beings and a
Underworld
The underworld is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
The concept of an underworld is found in almost every civilization and "may be as old as humanity itself". Common features of underworld myths are accounts of living people making journeys to the underworld, often for some heroic purpose. Other myths reinforce traditions that entrance of souls to the underworld requires a proper observation of ceremony, such as the ancient Greek story of the recently dead Patroclus haunting Achilles until his body could be properly buried for this purpose. Persons having social status were dressed and equipped in order to better navigate the underworld.
Plane (esotericism)
In
The concept may be found in religious and esoteric teachings—e.g. Vedanta (Advaita Vedanta), Ayyavazhi, shamanism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Kashmir Shaivism, Sant Mat/Surat Shabd Yoga, Sufism, Druze, Kabbalah, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Rosicrucianism (Esoteric Christian), Eckankar, Ascended Master Teachings, etc.—which propound the idea of a whole series of subtle planes or worlds or dimensions which, from a center, interpenetrate themselves and the physical planet in which we live, the solar systems, and all the physical structures of the universe. This interpenetration of planes culminates in the universe itself as a physical structured, dynamic and evolutive expression emanated through a series of steadily denser stages, becoming progressively more material and embodied.
.The
Afterlife (including Reincarnation)
In numerous mythologies and religions, and thus tying within the Orbis Alius motif proper is the concept of an afterlife, wherein a purported existence by which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body.
End of The World
Many myths mention an "
The 2012 phenomenon was a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events would occur on or around 21 December 2012, pursuant to the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar (aka Mayan calendar).
See also
- Comparative religion
- Development of religion
- Georges Dumezil
- Hamlet's Mill
- Carl Jung
- Eliphas Lévi
- Claude Lévi-Strauss
- Joseph Campbell
- Motif-Index of Folk-Literature
- Myth and ritual
- Mythography
- Mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas
- Helena Blavatsky
- Marcel Griaule, Jean Rouch and Germaine Dieterlen
- Abram Smythe Palmer
- Panbabylonism
- Parallelomania and parallelophobia
- Religious pluralism
- Structuralism
- Samael Aun Weor
Specific motifs:
References
- ^ a b c d Littleton, p. 32
- ^ a b Golden, Kenneth L. (1992). USES OF COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY: Essays on the Work of Joseph Campbell. London & New York: Routledge. pp. 6–7.
- ^ Segal, "The Romantic Appeal of Joseph Campbell"
- ^ Segal, Theorizing About Myth, p. 148
- ^ Leonard
- ^ Northup, p. 8
- ^ a b E.J.M. Witzel, "The Origins of the World's Mythologies, New York : OUP 2012
- ^ Watkins 47–48
- ^ Ross and al. 2013; Tehrani 2013.
- ^ Propp, passim
- ^ Lévi-Strauss, p. 224
- ^ Johnson and Price-Williams, passim
- ^ Graves, p. 251
- ^ Segal, untitled, p. 88
- ^ Woolley, p. 52
- ^ Dimmitt and van Buitenen, pp. 71–74
- ^ Urton, p. 36
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- ^ Frankfort, passim; Tortchinov, passim
- ^ Campbell, The Masks of God, p. 44
- ^ Frankfort, p. 141
- ^ Robertson, passim
- ^ a b Eliade, Cosmos and History, p. 20
- ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, pp. 99–100
- ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 100
- ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, pp. 104–5
- ^ Railsback, passim
- ^ Rig Veda 10:90
- ^ Eliade, Images and Symbols, p. 40
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- ^ Eliade, Images and Symbols, p. 44
- ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 93
- ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 93–98
- ^ Leslau, passim
- ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 94
- ^ Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, p. 138
- ^ a b Squire, p. 47
- ^ Hesiod, especially pp. 64–87
- ^ Eliade, Cosmos and History, pp. 21–34
- ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, pp. 6–8
- ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 8
- ^ Segal, Hero Myths, p. 12
- Dimmitt, Cornelia, and J. van Buitenen, eds. and trans. Classical Hindu Mythology. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978.
- Eliade, Mircea
- Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. NY: Harper & Row, 1959.
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- "Le motif de Pygmalion : origine afrasienne et diffusion en Afrique". Sahara, 23, 2012c: 49–59 [3].
- "Polyphemus (Aa. Th. 1137). "A phylogenetic reconstruction of a prehistoric tale". Nouvelle Mythologie Comparée / New Comparative Mythology 1, 2013a [4]
- "A phylogenetic approach of mythology and its archaeological consequences". Rock Art Research, 30(1), 2013b: 115–118. [5]
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- "A Cosmic Hunt in the Berber sky : a phylogenetic reconstruction of Palaeolithic mythology". Les Cahiers de l'AARS, 15, 2013d: 93–106. [7]
- Johnson, Allen, and Douglass Price-Williams. Oedipus Ubiquitous: The Family Complex in World Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.
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Selected bibliography
- Arvidsson, Stefan, Aryan Idols. Indo-European Mythology as Science and Ideology. 2006. University of Chicago Press.
- Clifton, Dan Salahuddin, The Myth Of The Western Magical Tradition. 1998. C&GCHE
- Dickson, K. "Bibliography-in-Progress of Texts on Myths & Comparative Mythology". 11/12/09. Purdue University. 17 December 2009 web.ics.purdue.edu
- Doniger, Wendy, The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth. 1998. New York: Columbia University Press [An introduction to comparative mythology]
- Doniger, Wendy, Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India (Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion, 1996–1997: School of Oriental and African Studies University of London). 1999. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
- Dumezil, Georges, The Destiny of the Warrior. 1983. Berkeley: University of California Press
- Dumezil, Georges, The Plight of a Sorcerer. 1986. Berkeley: University of California Press
- Dumezil, Georges, Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty. 1988. New York:Zone Books
- Friedrich, Paul, The Meaning of Aphrodite. 1978. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
- Girard, René, Violence and the Sacred. 1977. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Hatt, Gudmund. Asiatic Influences in American Folklore. København: i kommission Hos Ejnar Munksgaard. 1949.
- Jamison, Stephanie, The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India . 1991. Ithaca: Cornell University Press
- Jamison, Stephanie, Sacrificed Wife / Sacrificer's Wife: Women, Ritual and Hospitality in Ancient India. 1996. New York: Oxford University Press
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude Myth and Meaning. 1995. New York: Schocken Books
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude, The Raw and the Cooked (Mythologiques Volume One). 1990. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude, From Honey to Ashes (Mythologiques Volume Two). 1973. New York: Harper and Row
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude, The Origin of Table-Manners (Mythologiques Volume Three). 1978. New York: Harper and Row
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude, The Naked Man (Mythologiques Volume Four). 1990. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
- Lincoln, Bruce Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. 1999. University of Chicago Press.
- Patton, Laurie; Doniger, Wendy (eds.), Myth and Method (Studies in Religion and Culture). 1996. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia
- Puhvel, Jaan, Comparative Mythology. 1987. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Tátar, Maria M. "Mythology as an areal problem in the Altai-Sayan area: the sacred holes and caves". In: Shamanism and Northern Ecology. Edited by Juha Pentikäinen. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 1996. pp. 267–278. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110811674.267
- White, David Gordon, Doniger, Wendy, Myths of the Dog-Man. 1991. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
- Witzel, Michael, The Origins of the World's Mythologies. 2010. New York: Oxford University Press
- Wise, R. Todd, A Neocomparative Examination of the Orpheus Myth As Found in the Native American and European Traditions, 1998. UMI.
Journals about comparative mythology:
- Comparative Mythology, http://compmyth.org/journal[permanent dead link]
- New Comparative Mythology / Nouvelle Mythologie Comparée, http://nouvellemythologiecomparee.hautetfort.com
- Ollodagos, https://web.archive.org/web/20160206045638/http://www.sbec.be/index.php/publications/ollodagos
- Studia Mythologica Slavica, http://sms.zrc-sazu.si
- Mythological Studies Journal, https://web.archive.org/web/20160303175646/http://journals.sfu.ca/pgi/index.php/pacificamyth/index
- The Journal of Germanic Mythology and Folklore, https://web.archive.org/web/20140630101827/http://www.jgmf.org/